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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
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Privacy
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My reference point is cloudflare's research on zero knowledge proofs used to issue anonymous tokens to bypass (pre-complete) captcha checkpoints.
Neither website nor issuer (nor the combination) can determine the identity of a user from the token (hence zero knowledge), but other techniques entirely unrelated to the cryptography can identify a user. For example network or browser metadata or traditional browser fingerprinting.
I see so it seems like we were talking past each other. I'm aware of Cloudflare's token system. As well as other systems like GNU Taler and Monero. So clearly privacy preserving systems can be built. But I also trust the EFF, and if they say the current system has major flaws I'm inclined to believe them
The age verification system can't be zero knowledge if they know what your token is, and can track it. Seems a bit funky
As you said, there's still metadata. For example, if they requested a new token every time you used one. Technically the token itself is still zero knowledge, but now the issuer knows when you use it.